7th
#3 - Music Marketing Tip Three
By Dan Willis
Close your eyes, count down from ten and let me take you back… Back to the time before apple’s meteoric rise back to prominence, before the iPhone, before the iPod, before MP3 was a common turn of phrase. Back to Walkman’s, stereo systems, CDs, tape decks and desktops with a whopping 1GB of disk space.
Now you’re hanging out with your friends in your room. You have a three-piece stereo system on top of your dresser, with dual tape decks and a 3-disc CD player. You saved up for weeks to buy it with your crappy $5/hr minimum wage job. The rest of your money of course went to CDs, but how did you know what bands were good. It’s not like you went out and bought just any band’s CD. After all, they weren’t the cheapest medium of music to ever hit the market and you didn’t have much change to spare.
Now although you listened to a lot of radio back then and that was a major influence on musical tastes, the most important referral was from friends. You’d all gather in each other’s rooms, break out a binder full of CDs and relax to the gritty voice of Chris Cornell from Sound Garden. There’s nothing that brings friends closer together than getting introduced to something you end up both really digging. And nothing will bring you and your fans closer than the same! So whether you’re on stage talking about the other acts that night or writing a blog about your influences, plug some of your favorite music. Your fans will love you for it and feel a closer to connection to you… and this means they’re more likely to hop on your boat!
